Extreme photography

CS 178, Spring 2011

Marc Levoy
Computer Science Department Stanford University

Extremes
!

high resolution

high speed low speed small aperture large aperture narrow eld of view wide eld of view high dynamic range low dynamic range
! Marc Levoy

Sinar view camera 10,000 ! 8,000 pixels

! Marc Levoy

! Marc Levoy

111-megapixel wafer-scale sensor

! ! !

95mm ! 95mm CCD sensor 10,580 ! 10,560 pixels low yield, very expensive

5 (aperture) telescope at the U.S. naval observatory, Flagstaff, AZ

! Marc Levoy

Graham Flints gigapxl.org

! ! !

custom camera and lens 18 negative ! drum scanner ! printer 40,000 pixels ! 25,000 pixels
! Marc Levoy

Balboa Park, San Diego

(full-resolution print in Gates Hall, 3rd oor, entrance to graphics wing)

San Diego Skyline

xrez.com (also gigapixel resolution)

! Marc Levoy

xrez.com (also gigapixel resolution)

! Marc Levoy

Extremes
high resolution
!

high speed

low speed small aperture large aperture narrow eld of view wide eld of view high dynamic range low dynamic range
! Marc Levoy

Harold Edgerton:
father of high-speed photography

no shutter electronic strobe

from Stopping Time, 1964

microphone near gun

! Marc Levoy

Ultra-high speed photography

atomic explosion 1/100,000,000 second camera was 7 miles away telescopic lens

High-speed video with a still camera: the Casio EX-F1

640 ! 480 pixels 300 frames per second border collie

21 ! Marc Levoy

 320 ! 480 pixels 600 frames per second

 160 ! 480 pixels 1200 frames per second

Extremes
high resolution high speed
!

low speed

small aperture large aperture narrow eld of view wide eld of view high dynamic range low dynamic range
! Marc Levoy

Low-light photography

composite of two exposures cityscape was 30 seconds

Lee Frost, Santorini, Greece
! Marc Levoy

Time exposures in astonomy

(Palomar 200-inch)

30-minute exposure telescopes can rotate

Lee Frost, star trails to avoid smearing stars

What is the unmoving

star in the middle?
! Marc Levoy

Jesse Levinson, Andromeda

Painting with light

30-second exposure multiple ashes Dont stand between

Lee Frost, railroad yard the ashed part of the scene and the camera!
! Marc Levoy

Stephen Lesser, CS 178, Spring 2009

David Jacobs and Jongmin Baek, 2011

Extremes
high resolution high speed low speed
!

small aperture

large aperture narrow eld of view wide eld of view high dynamic range low dynamic range
! Marc Levoy

Small aperture

(large depth of field)

the f/64 club

Ansel Adams, Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson
! Marc Levoy

Extremes
high resolution high speed low speed small aperture
!

large aperture

narrow eld of view wide eld of view high dynamic range low dynamic range
! Marc Levoy

Large aperture

(shallow depth of eld)

Lewis Hine, Girl Worker in Cotton Mill, 1908

! Marc Levoy

Synthetic aperture photography

"
! 2008 Marc Levoy

Example using 45 cameras

[Vaish CVPR 2004]

! 2008 Marc Levoy

single frame

synthetic aperture photograph

Tilt-shift of Stanford quadrangle as seen from Hoover Tower

Extremes
high resolution high speed low speed small aperture large aperture
!

narrow eld of view

wide eld of view high dynamic range low dynamic range

! Marc Levoy

Narrow eld of view: telephoto lens

300mm lens
Bryan Peterson, Golden Gate Bridge
! Marc Levoy

Extreme telephoto

Nikon 1540mm

Cassegrain reector
! Marc Levoy

Other extreme telephoto lenses

Canon 1200mm

Nikon 2000mm

45

Zeiss 1700mm

! Marc Levoy

Really extreme
Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar, CA A = 200 (16) f = 650 (50) N = f/3.3

46

! Marc Levoy

Extremes
high resolution high speed low speed small aperture large aperture narrow eld of view
!

wide eld of view

high dynamic range low dynamic range

! Marc Levoy

Wide eld of view: stitched panoramas

48

! Marc Levoy

Wide eld of view: stitched panoramas

Crater Lake, Oregon

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4 photos, total = 90 eld of view Canon point-and-shoot camera, handheld stitched using Photoshop CS3

! Marc Levoy

Games with stitched panoramas

5 shots, with camera aimed slightly downwards and rolled clockwise around
its optical axis between shots left to right, producing a curved world effect when stitched using Photoshop with cylindrical projection

50

! Marc Levoy

Nikon 6mm sheye lens

220 eld of view measured diagonally 11.4 pounds

51

(DigitalFreak.net)

! Marc Levoy

Stanford CityBlock Project

(now Google StreetView)

! ! !

capture video while driving extract middle column from each frame stack them to create a panorama

! Marc Levoy

Stanford CityBlock Project

! Marc Levoy

Stanford CityBlock Project

! Marc Levoy

Extremes
high resolution high speed low speed small aperture large aperture narrow eld of view wide eld of view
!

high dynamic range

low dynamic range

! Marc Levoy

High dynamic range (HDR)

!

one of photographys key limitations

negative lm = 250:1 (8 stops) paper prints = 50:1 example below = 250,000:1 (18 stops)

#
(Paul Debevec)

! Marc Levoy

DIY HDR

2 shots Photoshop
CS4 Early morning in Zurich
57 ! Marc Levoy

Extremes
high resolution high speed low speed small aperture large aperture narrow eld of view wide eld of view high dynamic range
!

low dynamic range

! Marc Levoy

Atmospheric perspective according to Leonardo

the nearest objects will be bounded by evident and sharp boundaries, while those more distant will be... more blurred
On Painting

Virgin and child with St. Anne

! Marc Levoy

Sinar P3 view camera with 54H digital back

2" ! 2" sensor, actively cooled, 14 real bits

! Marc Levoy

single frame in dark room using iPhone 4

average of ~30 frames using SynthCam

SNR increases as sqrt(# of frames)

Slide credits
(in addition to individually credited images)
! ! ! ! ! !

Kayafas, G., Jussim, E.., Stopping Time: The Photographs of Harold Edgerton, Harry Abrams Inc., 1987. Frost, L., Night & Low-Light Photography,Watson-Guptill, 1999. Peterson, B., Learning to See Creatively, Watson-Guptill, 1988. Kemp, M., Leonardo On Painting, Yale University, 1989. http://gigapixl.org http://xrez.com

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! Marc Levoy